Episode 791: Brewster's Emails
Date January 6, 2016 Summary Ben and Sam banter about Justin Upton and answer listener emails about baseball movies, rap lyrics, restructuring divisions, free-agent demands, and more. Topics * Defining baseball movies * Realigning divisions on payroll * Baseball in rap lyrics * Pitching on no days rest * Electing managers * Free agent contract demands Intro Steppenwolf, "I'm Asking" Outro Patti LaBelle, "In the Nick of Time" Banter * Justin Upton signing rumors * Episode 763 follow-up: Early review of the GM predictions in Jerry Crasnick's poll Email Questions * Sean: "The other night on MLB network the Richard Pryor vehicle Brewster's Millions ''was on TV. I thought it was a bit curious that it was considered a baseball movie. Now of course they play baseball in the movie and Brewster himself is a former minor league pitcher who wants to pitch for a major league team, however I don't think baseball is the focus of the movie or central to the plot which is actually spending $30 million in 30 days. When you think about movies like ''Rookie of the Year, The Rookie, Major League, etc. they all have a significant amount of on screen time designated toward baseball and baseball is central to the plot. A young kid breaks his arm and then becomes a dominant closer and helps the Cubs to the pennant, a former minor leaguer turned high school teacher earns his way to the major leagues, a new owner takes over a rag tag loser club that turns things around, etc. What do you think is the minimum amount of time or plot focus in time or percentage of time to have a movie officially become a 'baseball movie'?" * Max: "I grew up as a Montreal Expos fan. As a kid I was frustrated that Montreal could not compete with the big market teams. To give them a chance I had the idea that MLB should create a small market team division. Montreal, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minnesota. By doing this at least one small market team would be qualified for the playoffs every year. Now what if divisions were based on team payroll? The league could be divided into six divisions with the top five biggest payroll teams in the same division and the sixth five biggest in another division and so on. The divisions could be set by using the previous year's total dollars spent. A more geeky could be to have the division reset every day based on the current team's situation. Please discuss how baseball would be different under this system." * Kip (Seattle, WA): "A few weeks ago Sam mentioned that one of his specialities in coverage was rap music that mentions baseball. I too love rap and get giddy anytime baseball and mentioned. I'm most likely a neophyte compared to Sam but one of my favorites is Buck 65. If you are not familiar Buck 65 is a Canadian rapper with a more diverse and eclectic style and he makes constant references to baseball. One of his biggest hits, such as they are, is titled 463 and its video shows Buck 65 as all members of two baseball teams facing each other. The mystery I am referring to however is in his song 5 Gallon Drum. In it, Buck describes what would possibly be heaven to him and he mentions a batting line for a game that seems all too specific. 3-4 with a double and two stolen bases. Given Buck's age (43) and his being from Nova Scotia, I would imagine that this is a famous Expos stat. I am hoping that Sam could do a live Play Index in hopes of solving this nagging suspicious." * Eric (Milbrae, CA): "Here's the plan: all major league managers are now elected by popular vote. They campaign in the offseason, hold debates, and are swept into the office with a mandate from the people. I don't really care about the particulars but let's say that managers are elected for three year terms and that election cycles are offset so that there are 10 open seats offseason. Baseball wins because it adds an interesting feature to its offseason, owners win because they can no longer be blamed for a bad managerial hire, and fans win because their voices are heard. Managers lose their guaranteed long term contracts but whatever. In this world do you think the traditional or the sabermetric types would control the seats? Do you think the pool of managers would become more or less diverse? And if you're running for manager, what is your platform?" * Matt: "I was thinking about Randy Johnson's 1998 free agency which came the winter his 35th birthday and at the end of his first full healthy season since 1995. I was wondering what people thought of the Diamondback's choice to commit to him for big money over four years and about what I thought they should have thought. That all went nowhere. I mention it purely because the subject still interests me and so you can see why I landed on the week in quotes on Baseball Prospectus for the first week of the 1998-99 offseason and found this quote from Mo Vaughn, 'I'll take less money but they have to give me my years. I'm 35 years old and want a five year deal, no four years and an option, a solid five year guaranteed deal. A base deal and maybe they can throw some options after that.' Anyway my question based on that quote, is it unbelievably blunt to anyone else? Do you suppose more guys should be more forthright about what they're looking for? Or would today's front offices find clever ways to give them just that while withholding other things they could be getting. How much do you think the preference pattern and genera savvy of the average big ticket free agent has changed over the last 17 years?" Play Index * Sam uses the Play Index to look at pitcher performance with no days of rest compared to their overall performance. * 140 of the 233 pitchers with at least 15 innings on no days rest have a better ERA than their career ERA. Notes * Sam jokes that The Godfather is his favorite baseball movie, it is just that all the baseball happens off screen. * Sean's email sparked the Baseball Thing meme among Effectively Wild listeners. * Tim Raines on May 22nd, 1986 was 3-4 with a double and two stolen bases. * Sam thinks that high profile players from a franchise's history would be the most popular managers and that the pool of managers would become less diverse. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 791: Brewster's Emails * Saturday Night Live - Baseball Dreams Come True Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes